The Curse of the Tentacled Devourer – Dev Blog 48
The Void is a strange place. An eldritch dimension older than time itself. Stealing parts from other dimensions only to leave them drifting through It’s vast emptiness. It is also full of magical energy, which gives rise to many strange and dangerous interactions. There are great evils and perils in The Void. One of these are an ancient creature known as the Tentacled Devourer (Flagelli Devoro).
The origins of the Tentacled Devourer are unknown, as nothing similar is found in nature. It is an unnatural and evil thing. It’s only purpose in life is to consume magical energy and to grow. It has no other thoughts aside from a ravenous hunger for magic. An immobile creature, around three feet high in it’s adolescent form. It has eight tentacles that radiate out from it’s central body in all directions, to a length of around 10 feet. These tentacles are it’s main tool when gathering food. The Tentacled Devourer is a creature that will consume anything it can – be it organic or inorganic. Everything within The Void will contain some amount of the magical energy – the older a thing is, the more of this energy it will contain.
The Tentacled Devourer will happily consume the rock underneath it, or even a careless peon, in a hungry desire to consume as much magic as possible. The underside of the each tentacle is actual a single giant mouth, with razor sharp teeth that is used to consume matter.
As the Tentacled Devourer eats more and more, a crystal will start to grow from it’s central core. This crystal contains concentrated magic contained within a highly structured lattice. An incredibly potent form of magic and power – which is essential for the peon’s various occult inspired machines. The peons will want to harvest this crystal. But it is dangerous to do so. The Tentacled Devourer is fiercely protective of this crystal and will defend itself with it’s powerful tentacles. When the crystal is removed by a brave peon, then the Tentacled Devourer will be left with a giant gaping wound in it’s central core, where eventually another crystal will start to form from. But this will leave it incredibly angry and it is very wise to give the Tentacled Devourer a wide berth until a new crystal has grown and weighed it down.
But how could such a single minded creature (which will eat anything – including it’s own kind) breed? Immobile and consumed with it’s only desire to acquire more magic via it’s many mouths. The answer is disturbing. When a crystal is harvested by a peon, microscope fragments of it will be released into the air. The air the peons are breathing. These fragments will lodge themselves inside the peons lungs and lie dormant. Should a certain mass of these crystals be inhaled, then the peon will start to experience the pure energy of The Void.
This energy is addicting, it is powerful and it will slowly start to change the peon. The peon will start taking risks to gather more magical energy. Experiencing the same hunger the Tentacled Devourer does. They will attempt rituals, or even approach a Tentacled Devourer to try and harvest more crystal.
By the time the peon is experiencing these symptoms, it is almost too late to save the peon. The peon will gradually go quite insane and his body will start slowly morphing into a Tentacled Devourer. Eventually the peon will collapse in the snow and as the tentacles emerge from it’s body it will start the cycle again, becoming a Tentacled Devourer and waiting for unaware peons to encounter it while it fulfills it hunger…
It has been known for a single Tentacled Devourer to consume an entire floating island. When it does this it will have grown to an unimaginable size. When this happens the Tentacled Devourer goes dormant. Drifting through The Void – eventually it will find another island to consume, and just get bigger and bigger.
For those who are interested, here is the original bit of concept art I used while creating the Tentacled Devourer (notice the slight name change!), as well as a timelapse of the model being built. Enjoy!
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